<p>I don't know, I still think SATs are a bad indicator EITHER way- I'm not a published and awarded author like <em>some</em> people, but it's not physically possible to do better on the SAT & SATII writing portions than I did... or on the AP Lit/Comp English test. But I still think my essays read like a trained monkey wrote them, because I've never been good at expressing my personality through polished written word. I wrote my autobiography essay for Penn in 3rd person and then edited it to 1st person because I hated writing it so much. I'd hope no one looked at those essays and assumed I cheated on the SATs.</p>
<p>The issue is NOT about spelling and basic grammar. Most anyone who tries to produce a good application essay will find eliminating spelling and grammar errors to be the easiest part. That does not make it a great essay.</p>
<p>For the SAT essay, the best way to ensure a ggod to very good score is to follow the formulaic way the scorers HAVE to reward. Great writers who fail to address their target audiences (the 90 seconds readers) may be in for a surprise. </p>
<p>As far as the recommendation to have Chicago-esque prompts ... I hope that would NEVER happen. While Chicago might find it interesting to read students' mental gyrations about the use of a giant jar of mustard, this is more a reflection of a school that tries to be and remain different than a great choice for an essay prompt. </p>
<p>As I said, cheating or embellishment of essays is far from having the impact of the "other" distortions found in applications. I find the fake EC organized by Daddy and Mommy and the "manipulations" of the loopholes of the system to be a lot more egregious than the mere editing of essays. Finding the culprits is not that hard: just look among the ethnic and social groups that are absolutely obsessed by earning a spot in an elite school. </p>
<p>No efforts or number of lies will be spared.</p>
<p>Northstarmom has a point and even though I despair at the thought of my SAT essay being compared to my 500-word one...my scores may correlate.</p>
<p>I have won national awards for writing and I received 12/12 on both the SAT and ACT essay. The problem was, they really don't reflect the WAY the write and (thank goodness) they don't sound like me!</p>
<p>In addition to getting professional help in writing and editing the college essays, students can get help in writing the SAT essay. This help can involve extensive practice on the types of topics which are likely. With enough practice, the student can have some canned essays which can fit or be modified to fit the actual SAT topics.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, you raise good points. My daughter did take an SAT prep course, although I do question the quality of the tutoring offered. However, she is a perfectionist, which affects everything that she does. For example,when she took the last SAT, she was fretting throughout the whole exam about the first section of the test,which she felt went badly. Why she can't just forget about it and move on is a mystery to me. However, that is just the way her thought process works.</p>
<p>A speed reading course, however, may have some merit. Hmm.</p>
<p>Edad, I agree with you that as more and more tests become public, kids will become more familiar with the writing component of the SAT. This will allow for a more coachable approach to the writing section. I can just imagine that many schools will now alter than English curriculum to "coach" this section.</p>
<p>I would bet that in future years, the writing section scores will rise accordingly. Maybe school board superintendents will claim that this is a result if increased school quality and pedagogical techniques, when it simply meant more coaching toward the test.</p>
<p>Back to the original question, if we are talking about "purchased" essays, as opposed to heavily edited essays, I would warn prospective applicants (or customers) that colleges may run the essay through a plagiarism detector program that can identify the original source of a plagiarized document. I wouldn't trust an essay vendor to be providing unique, original essays. Also, keep in mind that your essay will be a permanent part of your file. Even if a purchased essay is not detected by the admissions officers and you get accepted to your college of choice, that purchased essay will always be there to bite you in the rear when you least expect it. If the Department of Justice investigates essay writing services don't expect the vendors to protect their client list. Imagine yourself ten years after graduation, head of some big governement agency like FEMA, when a newspaper investigation turns up the fact that you purchased your essay for your college application! You would likely be forced to resign in disgrace, your life ruined! :(</p>
<p>Njres, I think you are raising a real problem. Anyone who purchases a canned essay is puting themselves at risk for years.</p>
<p>It isn't just purchasing 'canned' esssays that is a problem, but students who lift previously published sentences and concepts to use in their own writing. To answer the original question, given the propensity of colleges towards using online apps, it is very, very easy to autocheck all web-submitted applications using software like Turnitin. This software checks against a ton of search engines and I think also hits Lexis-Nexis and other databases. </p>
<p>Where it gets tricky I think is when students online 'share' their essays with each other by posting them online - schools have no way of knowing that the Sarah Smith that submitted a great essay that got 'caught' by a program like Turnitin is also the owner of the 'anonymous' Livejournal for PixieGirl87 that posted the exact same essay online, - it just comes up as a positive hit. And if Turnitin happens to find 4 women who turned in that same essay, because the one that owns the Livejournal and wrote it turns it in, and then 3 other women who read her Livejournal thought it was good enough to steal, modify somewhat, and turn in as their own, imagine how much fun that could get.</p>
<p>Supposedly the point of these essays is to get to know the applicant better than what can be gleaned from the rest of the application. The trouble is, even if the student writes every word himself with absolutely no outside help other than spellcheck, and turns out a beautiful piece of work that brings tears to the adcoms' eyes, there is no guarantee that the content is not BS. </p>
<p>As a volunteer reader in my local community, I speak from experience. I have read wonderful essays written entirely by the students themselves that talk about real events but with a "and this is how I've grown as a person as a result" conclusion that is complete BS. I've also read plenty that talk about events that half happened and half didn't happen. These kids aren't stupid. They aren't getting SAT scores and gpa's in the top 5% and racking up AP's up the wazoo because they're stupid. They know what the adcoms want to hear and they give it to them. </p>
<p>Personally I think at this point things have gotten so twisted that the whole thing is a waste of time. There's no way to know who really wrote the essay, there's no way to know if the kid made half of the facts up, there's no way to know if the facts are correct but the "spin" is a lie.</p>
<p>The heavy emphasis on the essay has created a situation where the very thing the adcoms wanted from it in the first place (to get to know the applicant better) is the one thing they probably will not get. If kids didn't feel they had to write award-winning essays designed to keep exhausted adcoms riveted to their seats at midnight, if the advice were simply to write well, write from the heart, be yourself and have someone check the thing for errors, I think the essays would serve their original purpose much better. </p>
<p>And frankly, I don't see what people get out of mustard essays, but maybe it's just me.</p>
<p>Its a myth to say that they essays are heavily weighted in the admissions process - a panacea, of sorts, but I think most Admissions professionals (most schools don't really have a position that is called an AdCom) will tell you that the essays aren't as big a factor as parents and students like to think, and higher education research on the admissions process bears this out.</p>
<p>According to NACAC's Multicultural Institute for Advanced Thinking and Practice in Admission study, while the essay may in extreme circumstances be considered a 'tip' factor for an individual student, 60% of admissions staff reported that they considered the essay only of somewhat or minor importance, however, "Students [especially suburban students whose schools feed 4 year colleges] were more likely to say that the essay was "very important" than were admission officers, especially at schools with abundant counseling resources. Guidance counselors and teachers, in fact, appear to reinforce this perception of importance. Increased interaction between students and school personnel may connect to students' perceptions about the importance of the components of their applications."</p>
<p>There is a big disparity between the weighing of the essay portion between the reader and the writer of those essays, and I suspect that much of that disparity has to do not only with 'professionalization' of the college application process as a way of profiting from parent/student anxiety.</p>
<p>theotherside, I believe that is absolutely true. And yet, go to the US News "admissions criteria" page and type in some random schools... I just picked some out of the air--UC Berkeley, Scripps, JHU, Chicago, Amherst---Guess what they all say about the essay? "Very important." It took going to Ohio State before I got to one that only classifies the essay as "Important." </p>
<p>This characterization of "Very Important" may indeed be a lie, but it is what is being published and communicated to students, not just through the publishing companies that stand to gain by selling "How to Write a KickButt Essay" books but the schools themselves through their common data sets which get republished in the college guides. </p>
<p>"Very Important" is the highest category. If the colleges tell the kids that the essay is "Very Important" the kids feel they better darn well treat it as such and I don't blame them. </p>
<p>If these essays are not "Very Important", than why don't the colleges say so? My bet is they'd get a whole lot more truth out of the kids if they told them that the essay is "Considered." If the kids didn't feel that essays can make or break them because they are Very Important, they wouldn't feel the need to resort to deception.</p>
<p>I have a solution for this problem:</p>
<p>We should ask the school english department to send out student essays directly to the colleges of interests just like trascripts and recommandation letters. Each essay should be read at least once by one english teacher of the school.</p>
<p>I guess I understand some of the reasons for requiring essays. The SAT's have received a lot of bad press. Some kids are bright and capable but just don't do well taking the tests. Using class rank and grades to evaluate students is even worse. There is just no way to compare performance due to the great variation in secondary school quality. In theory, the essays provide another means to assess the student. In spite of the good intentions, I think the essays are all but worthless. I believe most kids receive considerable "help" with their essays. This can range from simple advice on checking spelling/grammar to someone else writing most or all of the essay. Secondly, I just don't understand how an essay can be evaluated. I suppose the readers look for spelling errors, grammatical errors, and paragraph structure. If they do find errors, what does this mean? Does it mean the student will not do well in college or does it mean they did not spend enough time on the essay and did not get enough help?</p>
<p>I remember my D's efforts in writing the common app essay. I thought the first draft was really great. The essay was about one of her EC's. It reflected her interest and passion. It showed a lot about her and how she thinks. The story was fascinating. It was serious but also very humorous. It was also full of spelling and grammatical errors and the structure needed work. She re-wrote the essay many times and also got help from her HS english teacher. The final essay contained no errors, but had also turned into boring pap. The passion and the humor were gone. She did have to write numerous additional, college-specific essays. Most of those were not overworked and were much better. Even so I can't imagine how the colleges can evaluate several essays from each of thousands of applicants.</p>
<p>My gut tells me the importance of the essay may be highly over-rated.</p>
<p>I can't imagine essays submitted to large state universities receive more than a second glance. </p>
<p>Smaller schools and LACs may evaluate deeper, but I suspect they look far more seriously at the data which can't be tampered with (as much) like test scores and transcript.</p>
<p>I find it difficult to believe that any college would take the time to compare applicants' admission essays to their SAT essays. Students are trying to create an application with impact so that its gets noticed during the 10 minute application review. How many applications don't even get a thorough read, much less undergoing a writing style comparison?</p>
<p>Cal got 36,500 freshman applications last year.</p>
<p>UC's require three essays totalling no more than 1,000 words. </p>
<p>36500 X 1000 = 36,500,000 </p>
<p>Thirty-six million, five hundred thousand words.</p>
<p>No, I don't believe they read them all. Compare them to the SAT writing sample? I highly doubt it; perhaps if they are on the fence about an applicant and something seems very out of place. Even then, I'd say no more than a cursory look.</p>
<p>I don't think that essays make that much difference in most college admissions as in many cases, what colleges are really looking at are stats. This particularly is true of public institutions. For instance, I saw an article 2 years ago that said that adcoms at one of the Fla. public universities took about 10 mins. to completely review and make a decision on an application. Most of the review was making sure that students had taken the required courses and had stats in the right range.</p>
<p>At colleges like HPYS, Chicago, Wesleyan, Amherst, etc., essays are very important because most of the applicants have outstanding stats, recommendations, etc. Therefore, it's things like essays, interviews and recommendations that can make the difference between rejection and denial. Those adcoms also are able to spend more time reviewing each application -- including checking to see if essays are plagiarized.</p>
<p>Here's a recent article about college essay writing:</p>
<p>"The write stuff
Many students dread college admissions essays, but writing your way into a good school is possible"
<a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/02/INGI5EVUM31.DTL&hw=college+essay&sn=001&sc=1000%5B/url%5D">http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/02/INGI5EVUM31.DTL&hw=college+essay&sn=001&sc=1000</a></p>
<p>One thing I found interesting was the mention of kids who wrote successfully about false incidents; e.g.., the straight kid who wrote his way into Yale with an essay about his "experience" coming out as gay.</p>
<p>The online common app has made it easy for kids to apply to a great many schools. A supplement that requires lots of information and additional essays can help avoid applications from kids who are not serious about attending. I suspect schools may put a lot of importance on the supplements. They want to improve their yield and the quality of the supplement may help identify kids who are serious about attending, even if the effort involved a lot of creative story telling and getting outside help in writing the essay.</p>
<p>What happens to a kid who "reveals" himself in a fictitious essay?</p>